Matt Richardson: Slash

★★★
comedy review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
33330 large
121329 original
Published 16 Aug 2017
33328 large
121329 original

Matt Richardson is one of those comedians who makes you wish you'd been at all his other, previous gigs – the ones where the audience all had amazing comebacks; or "literally the other night", when someone made a remarkably fine-tuned heckle. Or so we're told. It's all part of the game, though, and Slash is fairly decent one to play along to. 

On the spectrum of creative risk, Richardson plumps firmly for the middle, and hits bullseye. His delivery, content and style are all pitched solidly, expertly even, at the polished level you'd expect from an established TV comic. Having presented The Xtra Factor back in 2013, an online community of One Direction fans began to place him in their erotically charged "slash fiction", hence the title, in which he finds an amusingly meak version of himself placed in sexual encounters with various members of the band. 

He intermittently hops on a stool engulfed in a romantic lighting cue to read exerts from these, and it's that unique idea (few other comics could incorporate celeb fantasies featuring themselves into their set) that gives the hour an original facelift. Between these segments it's the predictable blend of implausible interactions and young white dude sex stories, but they generally suit the vibe he's going for. 

There's a rabid intensity to him that elevates most of his material and raises the stakes. We can only hope, for his sake, that the 1D fanbase find a new reluctant sex icon.